How Obama Got Elected

Thanks to the above video and this wonderful site we now have some answers. The Zogby poll on the website is pretty scary as to the level of voter knowledge. However most of the media was so far in the tank for Obama that I find it hard to blame voters for lacking knowledge as to many pieces of negative information about the President-Elect during the campaign.

15 Responses to How Obama Got Elected

Scary, yes, but I’d like to see a similar poll to learn what McCain supporters knew about McCain. I honestly think that most people, regardless of who they support, are well informed. That might be a bias, but it comes from a general apathy I’ve seen from people around me. There’s a few ideals they cling to, a few slogan’s they’ve heard, and that’s it.

I think the video is amusing/depressing, but the title of the post over-sells it. Sure, the media was in the tank for Obama; 70% of the public acknowledged it in a survey, but he probably still would have won given Bush’s unpopularity and the financial crisis.

I would like to agree with John Henry, but such surveys as typified by Zogby’s do give me pause. Are we reaching a point in this country where education is so poor and ignorance so deep that our election of president is based almost entirely on charisma, especially when a favored candidate is protected by a media which has, in effect, sworn fealty to him? I recall another vignette from this election where a fellow wanted to vote for the pro-life anti-abortion candidate, but lacked knowledge as to the positions of Obama and McCain on the issue. In the face of such jaw-dropping invincible ignorance I am moved both to laughter and tears.

Remember boys and girls- the vast majority of our fellow Amurricans are not politics junkies as we. Perfectly content to watch football/shop at supermarket/raise younguns without benefit of political knowledge. Or will reply in matters of controversy Oh They’re All The Same. Consider how the Political Elite has pushed themselves ever further between selves and Most Amurricans. They and their MSM Acolytes. Dismayed by the sight of well-dressed businesspersons trekking to Capitol Hill, tin cups in hand. But hey they may ask if my kid wants to open up a lemonade stand I might given them pitcher pieces of wood and lemonade mix and he’s on his own. And that’s true. But The Elite must feed its own. Not sure when the cycle will end. But some of peeps really are doofuses, to be honest.

I honestly think that most people, regardless of who they support, are well informed.

Sadly, no.

Dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang. My unfortunate tendency to leave out “not” when I write trips me up yet again. I mean to say that most are NOT well-informed. Thanks for calling me on that, blackadderiv.

Though the conservative in me would like to imagine that “it’s not the way it used to be” — do you think think is much different from how things were thirty or fifty or a hundred years ago?

Did people actually have a clear idea of JFK’s abilities and policies, or did he win on charisma?

Did FDR’s overwhelming majorities actually have a decent idea of how good a job he was doing, or was it image first?

Heck, even going back to when the voter base was much smaller and presidential voting was less direct: Was Jackson’s victory (the first truly populist campaign in the US) really based on his positions and abilities, or on enthusiasm and “hype”?

Maybe it’s some of each: modern elections have become even more shallow, but our republican has never been as thoughtful and informed as one might like. Or perhaps it’s ways been like this, just in different ways in different eras.

Good points Darwin, although the Lincoln-Douglas debates would be a good argument to the contrary. Flash and charisma are advantages in any era, but I do think our time period, as a result of technology and less attention to public affairs by a growing portion of the public, is especially prone to electoral victories by personality rather than electoral victories by positions.

“Was Jackson’s victory (the first truly populist campaign in the US) really based on his positions and abilities, or on enthusiasm and ‘hype’?”

You’re doubtless correct, Darwin, but don’t forget that his poor suffering wife Rachel got the Sarah Palin treatment squared from the other side. Or maybe I should say that Palin got the 20th-century version of the Rachel Jackson treatment?